The use of cannibalism in Lon Fuller‘s “The Case of the Speluncean Explorers“–which I assigned as a reading this semester to kick off my philosophy of law class’ take on the nature of law and legal interpretation–is, of course, a deliberate choice to render the circumstances of that fictional case especially dramatic, to place theContinue reading “The Cannibalism Taboo And Becoming A Ghost”
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Grieving For Others When ‘There Is Sobbing At Home’
In Koba The Dread (Vintage International, New York, 2003, pp. 258) Martin Amis includes in a footnote, a quote from Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn citing an alleged Russian proverb as follows: Why grieve for others when there is sobbing at home? The sentiment at the heart of this query about apparently misdirected grief may be summed up,Continue reading “Grieving For Others When ‘There Is Sobbing At Home’”
On Failing In Our Own Style
In Flaubert’s Parrot (Vintage International, New York, 1990, pp. 39) Julian Barnes writes: But then Ed Winterton liked to present himself as a failure…. His air of failure had nothing desperate about it; rather, it seemed to stem from an unresented realisation that he was not cut out for success, and his duty was therefore toContinue reading “On Failing In Our Own Style”
On Being Protected By My Father
Around the time my father retired from his military service, he decided to build a home on the then-still-developing outskirts of India’s capital, New Delhi. We bought a small plot of land, hired a contractor, and work began. We–my mother, my brother, and I–occasionally accompanied my father on his many trips to inspect the progressContinue reading “On Being Protected By My Father”
Samir Chopra 